Blended learning. Digital literacy. Mobile learning. Game-based learning. When these top educational trends came onto the scene, they sparked a learning revolution. That revolution continued into 2014, but if there was one theme to come out of the top educational summits this year, it was this: smarter use.

Canva is a great service for creating infographics, slides, and photo collages. The service launched last fall and has steadily grown since then. The latest update to Canva was the launch of their free iPad app.

Clarisketch allows you to add your voice and drawings to pictures or to a blank canvas. While you are talking about your picture you can draw on it to highlight sections of it. Completed projects are shared as links to the video file hosted on Clarisketch. You can share the link to your Clarisketch video and have it play on nearly any device that has a web browser.

If you’re a teacher who grew up in the pre-Internet era, you understand how tech innovation has revamped the educational landscape. Gone are the days of the blackboard and mimeograph. Teachers today carry a heavier (and more complicated) toolbox than ever before. The question is, how efficiently are you using your tools? Inviting Students to

The greatest challenge before us is to make the classroom more tech-friendly. To do this is to set up specific management strategies. A tech friendly classroom goes beyond just a computer, wi-fi, and projector. A lot of pre-work needs to go into the use of technology in a classroom, and this includes due inclusion of how the teacher intends to use technology in the class in his lesson plan. Innovative use of technology includes using tablet computers to solve mathematical problems, using social networking sites for exchange or collaborative lessons, where for example you need to learn about the Geography of France while sitting in India. What better way than to befriend a French student and then excahnging information about each other's contry?

Richard Byrne has updated his Best of the Web presentation. This version provides over 40 great websites/tools that you may want to check out. You should be able to find more information about each resource on this website also. Below are a few of the tools that may be new to you.

* Kahoot

* Canva

* Lucid Press

* Too Noisy

* JellyCam

There are many more in this post. As you watch the embedded presentation you may click on a link and go directly to the website (which opens in a new window).

There's quite a long review and brief tutorial of Roon here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/roon-is-a-slick-easy-to-use-blogging-platform-you-may-want-to-try/ I particularly like the comment in the summary "Sometimes we get caught up in complex blogging platforms, plugins and more. Roon takes all of that away and ensures that you focus on what matters the most – your words." A rich feature set isn't always an advantage. Roon certainly isn't a competitor to WordPress, but it does make it easy to just get down to writing. For students that can be quite an advantage.

I just tried Roon out and made a post (on my Mac, by the way). I wanted to try it to see if it was something to share with students. It was pretty easy, though figuring out how to change the title of the post from "Untitled" was frustrating (I assumed the "Header" was the title...not so. You just click on it after you save and can change it in the sidebar.).

I'm not sure what the point of giving your blog a title was when it posts as your user name and never shows your blog title. My advice: use your blog title as your user name.

Teachers really like the ability to display their iPad or their students' iPads on a projector screen. Projecting on a large screen is great for demonstrations, simulations, explanations, and showing examples. There are several ways this can be done in the classroom. Read the post for more information and for a handy chart.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.